Laclede has made only one acquisition in its 155-year history, and it sold that one a few years later. Suzanne Sitherwood is ready to change that.

Sitherwood, 51, joined The Laclede Group as president late last year after 31 years at AGL Resources in Atlanta — most recently as president of Atlanta Gas Light Co. — and became chief executive in February. Job No. 1 for her is acquisitions. “It’s why the board was interested in me, quite frankly,” she said.

She had plenty of experience at AGL, which in recent years acquired Elizabethtown Gas, Chattanooga Natural Gas, Virginia Natural Gas, Florida City Gas, Elkton Gas and Nicor Gas. AGL also created unregulated business units such as Sequent, Pivotal and South Star, which vary from natural gas transportation to landfill gas production.

At Laclede, she has moved quickly and publicly. She shuffled Laclede’s top management structure in April and added a new position, naming Michael Spotanski as senior vice president and chief integration and innovation officer. “Spotanski will lead the company’s efforts to integrate regulated natural gas distribution utilities and other businesses that the company acquires,” Laclede said in a statement at the time.

And Sitherwood has been on the road getting the word out. She gave 17 speeches in two days at the American Gas Association Financial Forum in Tulsa in early May.

The Laclede Group, ticker symbol LG, has two subsidiaries, Laclede Gas Co., the regulated utility, which serves 625,000 customers in the St. Louis area and provides about 70 percent of revenue, and the unregulated Laclede Energy Resources Inc., which markets natural gas to industrial and commercial customers throughout the Midwest. Any acquisitions will be on the regulated utility side because that’s what investors want, Sitherwood said. “Investors invest in us because we are the utility — we’re not going to hit it out of the park, but we are stable,” she said, with dependable returns and dividends.

“When the board went outside the company for a new CEO, part of what they wanted was a desire for change, and looking to grow through emerging technologies or acquisitions would be change from LG’s previous endeavors,” Selman Akyol, an analyst in Stifel Nicolaus’ St. Louis office, told investors May 17. “We view this positively.”

The timing of Laclede’s interest in acquisitions is partly because its balance sheet is strong and debt financing is readily available at low interest rates. Laclede’s profit totaled $63.8 million in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30, up 18 percent from the previous year and the third highest in its history. It had cash and short-term lending available in excess of $100 million as of March 31.

Sitherwood said her search will not be limited by geography, but she has a preference. “We’ll look to the East and West coasts, but the Midwest would be the best.” That’s because the physical and financial flow of pipelines is complicated — it’s hard enough to master your own region’s pipelines, much less someone else’s. Most of Laclede’s gas comes from the Gulf of Mexico and the Shale Basins north of it.

All that said, Sitherwood is in no hurry. “We’re not going to do a bad deal or a dumb deal,” she said. “I can be very patient when it comes to this.” In addition, sales are relatively rare among utilities — about two or so a year, Sitherwood said. “It’s not easy to find targets, so you have to stand ready.”

A big benefit to acquisitions is they provide scale. “If you have other utilities, you can drive costs down,” Sitherwood said. “For example, my costs get divided by three if you have three utilities.”

Sitherwood’s contract includes a base salary of $550,000 and a signing bonus of $200,000, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. She will participate in the company incentive plan, with bonus awards up to 100 percent of her base salary. She also received 7,000 restricted stock units that vest over three years and a grant of 10,000 performance-contingent units that can vest after two years if targets are met.

Laclede had a good track record of cost control under Doug Yaeger, who retired as chairman and chief executive Feb. 1. Total operating revenue fell steadily through the recession, from $2.2 billion in fiscal 2008 to $1.6 billion in fiscal 2011, as customers installed more efficient furnaces and needed less gas with relatively mild weather. But operating expenses at Laclede also declined, from $2.1 billion in 2008 to less than $1.5 billion in 2011, in part because of a focus on costs and because of the cost of gas.

“Gas is at historical lows,” Sitherwood said. “That’s why you’re seeing some manufacturing come back to the U.S., because energy costs have come down.” As a result of technology advancements, she said, “We’ve gone from a 10-year supply of gas to a 100-year supply.”